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Women Staying at Home Not Sinful…Yet

Christianity Today continues to play the whore with our Babylonian culture. The Atlantic just published an article where they interviewed Katelyn Beaty, the managing editor of Christianity Today, about her new book A Woman’s Place. The article was written by Jonathan Merritt, in case you are wondering. Apparently Ms. Beaty has moved from considering work outside the home as a option to work outside the home as mandatory. Here are a few quotes from the article. All the sentences with quote marks are from Beaty. The big block quotes are from the article.

Her new book, A Woman’s Place, claims to reveal “the surprising truth about why God intends every woman to work.”

Now you might think the “work” means work outside the home and inside the home, right? Right? Surely bringing up immortal souls made in the image of God day after day is work? No. Let me translate this: “God intends every woman to work outside the home.”

After carefully studying the scriptures, she concluded “there is a very strong biblical argument for the notion that women and men are equal in worth and dignity.”

Ah yes, that careful study of the Bible where we find things that have always been there and then twist them to mean things they have never meant so that we can push our own agenda which will destroy families, women, children, culture, and churches. Apparently, she has never read any book by anyone who holds to traditional male/female roles. If she did she would know we all affirm this and have for quite some time. But alas, the echo chamber of feminism requires you to read “equal in worth and dignity” as women are men and men are women. Glory only comes when we are all the same. And then comes the great slap at all mothers everywhere.

This begs a question: What about stay-at-home moms? While Beaty said she wants to affirm the value of the labor of motherhood, she considers it a separate category. While she isn’t willing to call full-time mothering “sinful,”[well isn’t that encouraging! PJ] she encourages women with children to assess their talents and put those to use outside of their households.

“When you talk about scales of influence or scales of societal influence, a woman who is staying at home with [her] children isn’t going to have as much influence on the direction of culture,” Beaty said. “We can talk about motherhood as a specific type of calling, but I’m not ready to professionalize it.”

A professional job involves certain aspects like a title and compensation, she said, and homemaking does not have such benefits. In the focus groups Beaty convened while researching this book, she said she spoke to many full-time mothers who long for this.

A job once praised and lauded by Christians everywhere as the primary way we influence culture has been demoted in favor or editing a magazine, managing a shop, or serving hamburgers at the local diner. Homemaking has no “title and compensation.” You are only worth something if you are making money and have your name on a door. Mothers used to have a title and compensation called respect, honor, dignity, and glory. Apparently Ms. Beaty prefers money and cultural prestige to that. Here comes another shock, she believes women should be pastors.

Beaty’s views of gender equality do not stop with the home or job market; they extend to the church as well. She supports the ordination of women as church pastors. When it comes to the many female ministers in her life, she said that “God has placed them and that their gifts are needed in the life of the local church.”

Maybe if she had some male pastors in her life she would be speaking such stupidity. But can we really expect a woman who won’t submit to the Bible submit to male pastors? Merritt notes the Protestants have not yet caught on to the trend of women being pastors.

Do you note a bit a sadness in Merritt as he writes this? I am sad reading it, but for an entirely different reason. Almost half the churches in America have compromised so much that they are not even churches anymore, but dens of vipers and snakes.

Though most of her magazine’s readers may not know it, Beaty considers herself a “feminist”—a term that causes many conservative Christians to recoil. She noted that first-wave feminism was partly driven by Christian ideals of social reform. Feminism and Christianity are “not inherently oppositional,” she said, and can be “integrated in a strong, biblical way.”

She vomits out that lovely lie that feminism and Christianity are not opposed to each other. They can work together in “a strong, biblical way” as long as that patriarchal Bible submits to feminism.

Here are the last few paragraphs. Beaty has the Bible on her side Merritt says, but unfortunately us backward, patriarchal, traditionalists won’t or can’t hear it. Poor us. The last bastion of resistance to equality for all. We don’t want women “empowered.” We don’t want “to lift them up.” We want to crush them under our hairy, tyrannical feet. If we would just jump on the egalitarian train the world would be a better place filled with love and peace. Beaty is a dutiful martyr marching forward despite opposition from “patriarchal” types. She knows hidden among the tares of patriarchy are the wheat of egalitarianism. She will not be stopped because after all she loves Jesus.

Tens of millions of Americans hold these [complementarian] views. Evangelicals may be one of the last pockets of resistance to gender equality in America, and they remain one of the country’s most influential and politically active groups.

Beaty does not seem discouraged by the possibility of opposition. “For every stereotype of the Christian who is patriarchal in a negative way, or who wants to hold women back, I’ve encountered more Christians, even conservative Christian men, who have woken up to the weird gender dynamics in the church and the ways that women are quietly sidelined,” she said. “There’s a greater desire among those Christians to empower the women in their lives. They just don’t quite know how to do it yet.”

For Christians who wish to lift up the women in their communities, Beaty’s work offers some guidance as to how. But even though her book uses the language and logic of the Bible, those who do not share her wish to empower women may not be willing or able to hear her message.

This article is trash, filled with manipulation and lies. This is not conservative, despite Merritt’s title. This is not Biblical. This is not Christian. Who is this woman’s pastor? Who let her speak for the Christian faith? Is there any hope she will be fired? No, probably not. Those of us hold to traditional roles for men and women find articles like this very troubling. 80,000 people subscribe to CT. 5 million people read their website each month. And we keep getting told, “Don’t worry guys. It is not as bad you think.” But signs say otherwise. Why did I put fire at the top of this post? There are two layers of meaning here. First, it reflects my heart. I am mad and hate stuff like this for the way it destroys people and dishonors Christ. Second, Hell is hot. Read into that whatever you wish.

I haven’t read it either, but I would urge you to read her book for yourself before tearing her apart so vehemently. It is usually wise to hold judgement until you have done so. You may still disagree, but at least your assessment would have credibility.